Jailbreak
by Reasons Lost
Summary: Continues from the end of the TR2013 comic. Sam is in prison, and not alone. Written for Endurance Week 2015.


Sam felt smothered by her own otherness. Lost in a haze that separated her from everything around her. She could no longer tell whether her actions were her own, or whether she watched them unfold from behind the lens of her own diminishing consciousness.

Lara's hand through the glass seemed indistinct and wavering, as if projected from a spotted roll of eight millimeter celluloid. Her voice through the phone was muted, carrying the feeling of an old recording. Sam clung to it with all she could, but she watched as her own hand fell from the glass.

Limbs that were no longer hers ached to move. _She_ ached for the infinitesimal warmth that seeped through the pane of bullet proofed glass. It didn't matter, that warmth was gone, replaced by a cool numbness as more distance grew between her and everything she cared about.

She drifted away against her will, carried by a stream of someone else's consciousness. A shadow she couldn't quite see moved behind her eyes, banging on the transparent panes that kept it imprisoned. It seemed odd to think of it that way, imprisoned, just as she was, lashing out against the walls of herself that contained it. Contained them both.

Without realizing she'd gotten that far, her back met the mattress of her bunk and she sank through it, and then through the floor. Darkness swallowed her as she fell away, somewhere deeper into herself than she'd ever been.

She stayed there, thrashing without movement and screaming without sound. Time ceased to have any meaning. Sight, sound, sensation, all of them were as good as memory. She had lost, but she wasn't alone. Her otherness came to her sometimes.

Sometimes between memories she would be shown things that were not hers. Things belonging to the other. She recognized Yamatai in all of them. The other showed her Yamatai as it had been at its height.

She saw Himiko's storm guard as they had been in life. Her general, and the endless loyalty and dedication in his eyes. Somehow his face had become Lara's without Sam's permission. Neither she or the other could seem to get it to change back. She hadn't seen anything at all for some time after that.

Drowned and fading as she was, she couldn't be sure if it had been real. She wondered sadly if these were fever dreams, signs that the last sliver of her was finally dying. She felt her heart freeze over, and rather than hurting it was a sort of comfort. No painful, intrusive memories, just silence. She could cease to be, and no one would miss her.

It was then that the other returned to her. Himiko tried to shake her awake, to force life into her lungs as surely as she could force wind across the skies.

Sam saw a girl, a demure seeming young woman with shoulder length, straight black hair, and an unmistakable spark of energy and vibrant life behind her eyes. Sam wouldn't have cared at all had the girl not been wearing clothes similar to what the Solarii had outfitted her with at the top of the mountain. It occured to her that they looked alike.

The spark of life in the girl's eyes slowly died, and Sam mourned that, as much as she could with her heart frozen over. It had been nice. The girl's face faded and something new was shown to her.

The girl's body lay in a heap, drained a pallid, paper white. All of the colour of her skin had drained away to the floor beneath her, soaking into the white of her dress. Behind the girl she could see Lara's face on someone who could not be Lara, she looked overtaken by despair. Her awareness seemed to be guided to the empty scabbard at the girl's feet. It matched Lara's armour.

Sam wished she could turn away. She knew what came next. Lara had told her about most of the things she'd found on the island. If she could have closed her eyes, she would have. The other seemed kind enough at least to not show her the loyal general's fate.

Instead, it showed her Lara. The real Lara, possessed of all the determination and loyalty of the general of the storm guard. The real Lara, battered and bloody. Sam recognized each open wound for the matching scar she had later memorized on Lara's body. Her heart was thawing. She didn't want it to thaw. She didn't want to hurt anymore.

She watched from so far away, so high above, and yet with such clarity, as Lara fought through everything the island threw at her. She felt a strange shift as the visions progressed. Lara the enemy, Lara the obstacle, that Lara became Lara the saviour, Lara the storm guard. Lara who could end their pain, Himiko's and Sam's both.

So too did the scenes change. No longer did the wind, rain, and lightning impede her progress. Long jumps were aided by powerful updrafts. New wounds were met with gentle rain to wash away her grime. Cold nights became windless and star filled.

Lara, battered nearly to the breaking point, having crossed through every hell on the island for Sam, at the mercy of Himiko's Oni. A powerful blast of wind carries him away, while Lara hangs on with her climbing axe.

Lara, with a growing trail of bodies in her wake, disarmed, out of ammunition, huddling behind cover. The storm strikes Himiko's fortress and stonework crumbles atop Lara's enemies.

With her heart ripped from the deep, cold ocean that had numbed it, Sam felt understanding. Kicking her feet, thrashing her arms, Sam rose to the surface. She opened her eyes, felt the air on her skin, and the horrible, scratchy orange jumpsuit she was wearing. She was herself. She felt the improvised blade in her hand, and she knew what Himiko wanted.

Himiko didn't want her body, Himiko never had. She just wanted to escape. Sam bit hard on her lip, swallowing a hard lump in her throat. She looked around her cell for any reason not to let Himiko out.

Something new came to her, something from deep inside the prison where she'd spent so long. A memory her and the other had shared.

"I made you a promise."


End file.
